DURHAM — It’s dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it. Austin Block has found a home in front of the net.

The senior forward has scored four goals in the last two games, and three have come from crashing the net where a physical price is often paid for success.

“Sometimes it’s tough getting to the dirty area,” Block said, “because there’s some big boys out there. I’ve been working hard in practice trying to play game-like, go to the net hard and go against some of the big guys on defense. We’ve been working on that a lot. We’ve got to keep doing it.”

“The puck’s going in for him,” said coach Dick Umile, “so I’m sure you’ll see him there again. He’s playing well.”

Thanks to that blue-collar work ethic, Block leads the University of New Hampshire hockey team with seven goals, including two in Saturday night’s 4-0 win over Vermont.

He had five all of last season.

His first goal Saturday came on a goal-mouth scramble early in the second period. He scored his second early in the third off the rebound of a Kevin Goumas shot.

“Those weren’t the prettiest goals I’ve ever scored,” Block said, “but I’m happy about it. The puck came to me a few times. All four lines played well. I think we had a lot of good chances.”

In its second straight game together, the line of Block, Goumas and Grayson Downing finished with three goals and three assists. Downing scored once Saturday and Goumas added three assists.

Umile juggled his lines following a two-game stretch in which the Wildcats scored only one goal. The trio also combined for two goals and an assist in the previous game, a 4-0 win at Maine.

“We moved the puck well,” Umile said. “We transitioned very well. When they took a shot our defense got it and moved it very quickly to our wings who generated offense. I thought we did that all night.”

UNH has scored first in the last four games. Downing’s shorthanded breakaway gave the Wildcats 1-0 lead early in the first period against Vermont.

They were hoping to rattle freshman goalie Brody Hoffman and scored twice on their first five shots. Downing’s goal 5:27 into the game on UNH’s first shot.

“Grayson was flying in stride,” Block said. “Great shot. I don’t know too many goalies that are going to be able to stop that. It’s definitely nice to get the early lead.”

UNH has also tightened up defensively. The Wildcats have allowed only two goals in the last four games backstopped by sophomore goalie Casey DeSmith, who has three shutouts in his last four starts.

He finished with 25 saves against Vermont.

“Our D-corps is solid,” Block said. “We’re working on our forwards playing better defense and helping out the D. It’s real easy playing defense when you have DeSmith in net making those kind of saves and shutting teams out.”

DeSmith became the first UNH goalie in more than five years to post back-to-back shutouts.

However, the Catamounts didn’t have many quality shots.

“They hardly got anything all night,” DeSmith said. “From the forwards all the way down to the defensemen, everyone played really good defensively. We back-checked through the middle better than we have all season. The defense kept them to the outside and cleared rebounds really well. I really didn’t have much to do. They played just that good.”

“He didn’t have to make many big saves,” Umile said. “They got some shots, but they didn’t get second and third shots. They were mostly outside. A couple were threatening, but not many.”

It was an important win for the Wildcats, who improved to 5-0-0 at home this season but have only one home game remaining this month.

Their next four games are on the road beginning next Friday at UMass-Lowell.

“It’s huge,” Block said. “I think we should win at home every time we play here. You can’t beat the atmosphere and the fans we have. It was packed tonight, it was loud. It’s pretty easy to build momentum with a big hit or a shot on goal or something. We need to win all the home games we can.”